The random passing thoughts and weird ideas of Jesse Shearer. Content will range from essays to observations to art, and just about anything one can think of to put in a blog.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Final Fantasy This Morning: Chicken Broth

...for the Final Fantasy 7 soul...?

I really need to get back to work on
the Text Plays I've got outstanding. Especially since I'm so very
near the end of FF6. I do have an issue partly written for the
endgame that I should probably just edit to post as a standalone and
then go ahead with the original idea I had for that.

With Final Fantasy 8, I'm not really
sure if I'm going to continue with it. Granted, I've put a lot of
time and effort into it, and I've made it farther than I have before,
so one might think there's good reason for me to just press on. As
is, however, I still have a disk and a half to go, and I get the
sense that there's more padding than actual game to this particular
ending, and I'm not sure how compelling that will actually be.

What I've been doing in the meantime is
playing a fair amount of Final Fantasy 7, after having done a rather
substantial explanation of it in one of the more recent issues of 8.
The thing about FF7 is that it was as much a launch title for the
original PlayStation as much as it was the next evolution in the
series' progression to what it is today, for better or worse. With
all that in mind, both Sony and Square did an excellent job of not
only the story, but the look and feel of the game. Gotta say, it's
held up very well for a game that's damn near 20 years old now. My
opinion is that it's actually held up better than 8 has, in a lot of
ways.

Another thing that's prompted my
current attempt at FF7 is the upcoming remastered version that I've
heard is set to come out sometime soon. While I do think the game
deserves it, because it's a good game in its own ways, and a rather
important one at that, this remastered version to have current-gen
sound and graphics also seems to have a rather substantial gimmick
feel to it. I want to think that Square-Enix is putting out this
remastered version of one of it's best-known games for all the right
reasons, there's also not a lot of denying that many of the more
recent games in the series, especially from Final Fantasy 13 on, have
been getting a lot of negative reactions from both old fans and new,
but moreso the old ones like myself. I like to think I'm neutral on
the matter, but all things considered, the fact that I've not played
any of the games since 9 in spite of having many opportunities to
pick some of them up is a good indicator that I'm not. In general, I
do like to at least give things a shot before judging them, but I've
openly admitted that just based on what I've heard about Final
Fantasy 10, for example, I don't feel especially compelled to do
that, and I tend to get mostly praise for making such assertions when
I do.

With that in mind, I really do hope
that Square is doing this remastered version of FF7 to introduce a
game that many old school fans tend to say is the last decent game in
the series to come out to a generation of gamers that may not have
played it yet. At the same time, though, my fear is that they're
just doing it to help Sony get back into my pocket, in which case,
I'm going to have to decline the offer much as I have on all the
games that have come out since FF9. In spite of some recent
improvements in my situation, I still don't really have the money to
throw around like that just yet.

I'm hoping those improvements will
eventually give me a chance to at least finish the Text Play of FF6
I've got outstanding. It's been far too long in coming, and I'd at
least like to get that much done, if nothing else. So, hopefully,
I'll at least have something along those lines coming soon. See you
in the very near future, everyone!